Date: December 29, 2010
To: letters@globeandmail.ca
From: Geoffrey Smith
Subject: The colour red

We read on the front page that retail sales are promising for this holiday season (Canada, U.S. Ring Up Higher Holiday Retail Sales – Dec. 29); we read in the business section that housing prices in the U.S. continue to fall, without an apparent end (Falling U.S. House Prices Still Looking For The Floor – Dec. 29).

We realize that both the aforementioned growth and decline are based significantly on personal credit. Having read numerous jeremiads on this topic in recent weeks, we conclude that one can't praise current retail sales at all, based as they are on plastic and deferred payment.

The reckoning looms; the colour red grows darker.

Geoff Smith
Kingston